Current Limitations 9th June, '13(ERM) 'Higher Production Cost' option doesn't work (unable to fix until next ATG patch)

Introduction

The ERM is a direct follow on from my original ‘Resource Mod’. It’s the new, improved version that comes with dancing girls and chocolates. The girls don’t like to dance alone so it’s now enabled for multiplayer use. The prime focus, however, remains as a means to improve the single player random game experience.

There are significant changes from the previous incarnation but the basic, resources-can-only-be-used-if-connected-to-your-capital, approach remains.

The original mod was made ‘cause I wanted to have this functionality in the game. The mod was aimed squarely at an audience of one, me. The only reason I gave it a quick polish and released it for public use is that it addressed similar concerns that other people on the forum were expressing at the time.

Over time a fair number of people have downloaded the mod and taken it for a run. Some even liked it.

Now, several years later, I’ve circled back and decided that ATG random games are still a premium gaming experience and that I’d like to improve that experience from the perspective of the single player versus the AI.

I’ve come up with a whole lot of ideas, forcibly squeezed my round head through the square hole that is the editor, attained a measure of Zen with the beast and figured out what was going to be doable technically, what would work game wise and how much improvement I could wring out of the single player ATG experience.

While, like before, I’m doing this primarily for my own use, this time around I’m taking a broader view and the mod is built from the ground up with other people in mind. There is a lot more functionality, the code has been optimised, stuff like MP is in there and the overall experience is generally greatly improved. More of a personal exercise in ‘doing it properly’.

The reason for all the changes is that I’ve planned the mod as a two stage implementation. What you have now is the first stage which is the approximate equivalent of the original ‘Resource Mod’.

The second stage, not yet done, is where I plan to give the single player game a significant push down the challenge scale. However I can’t do this without first rebuilding the foundations into a more adaptable design. I talk about the second stage at greater length in another post. So first stage done and dusted. Tick. Second stage underway, design prototype up and running, lot of implementation work still to be done.

Before I start with an explanation of the mod mechanics I’ll zip through and cover a range of miscellaneous topics.

A Word of Thanks

While I may have mentioned the awkwardness of the editor, it is only a temporary affliction. Once you eventually burst through the pain barrier it’s all straightforward and surprisingly powerful with what you can do.

It’s quite possible to crash the program by pushing the limits of the editor but you soon figure out where they are. The base ATG program is amazingly stable and a tribute to the guy who wrote and developed it, Vic.

Who, as a gentleman, is very helpful and responsive with technical, and not so technical, questions which goes a long way towards easing you over the speed bumps that inevitably arise from dealing with something new and different.

A big thank you to Vic for having the vision to develop ATG, to make it such an enjoyable experience and to continue to offer support to the game as well as to the people who try and fiddle with it.

Multiplayer

The mod is fully enabled for multiplayer. You can mix and match humans and AI. The mod has only had small scale MP testing (all good) so any feedback would be appreciated.

Whether it is of any interest to MP players is another matter. Comments elsewhere about not wanting to ‘slow the game down’ would indicate that it probably won’t be.

Using the mod will result in a slower pace as you have to connect resources to your transport network before they can be utilised. You’ll also have to build more trains and ships than you normally would to enable those resources to be transported back to your capital. This chews up production points that would have otherwise been spent on swarming your nearest neighbour.

On the flip side the mod opens up a lot more strategic options. Surgically isolating resources from your opponents transport network is highly doable. Overseas resources are particularly vulnerable. Blockade a key port, drop paratroopers to interdict a key rail link and you can take out multiple resource sites in one hit.

Sure, any isolated resources will be diverted to your opponent’s stockpiles but, provided you can keep the pressure on, they’ll only keep growing. Past a certain point and their stockpiles may as well be on Mars.

Conversely there is a greater need to protect the exposed tentacles of your own transport network. Not easy versus a determined opponent, geographical chokepoints and scattered resources.

Welcome to reality. How do you beat the most powerful nation in the world? Cut off their oil supply.

Action Cards

The mod has a lot of action cards. The second stage of the mod will throw even more into the mix. As the only means of giving the player decision making capability is currently through action cards, this isn’t likely to change.

However I’ve written an ‘Action Card Management System’ (the ACMS – ssssssh! I’m trying to flog it to the Pentagon) to prevent you, the player, being swamped by a screen jammed packed with a squillion itty-bitty action cards.

What this does is turn the action cards into a multi-layered menu system so that there are only a small number of cards on screen at any one time. It’s all coloured coded, logical, easy to navigate and quick. You’ll figure it out. Reports

The mod generates all manner of detailed reports that shine bright lights on all the dark, shady corners where quality information tends to lurk.

To prevent you, the player, being spammed each turn by a stream of never ending reports I’ve condensed all the important information into a single report ‘Staff Officer Briefing – Transport’. This is the only report that will automatically pop-up each turn.

Via the magic of the ACMS (Hoo harrr!) you are able to selectively view any of the other, more detailed reports, whenever you wish. Additionally there are options to allow you toggle each individual report on/off so that you can customise which reports pop-up at the beginning of each turn depending on your needs and preferences.

If you don’t mind flying blind you can even switch off the ‘Staff Officer Briefing – Transport’ summary report and segue your way sideways into each new turn sans any bothersome paper and numerical nonsense. Real men have waste paper bins for a reason.

There are three main differences. Lots of minor changes but I’ll cover the three big ones.

Firstly there is now a dedicated transport pool. Previously any cargo ships or trains you had on the map were assumed to perform troop, strategic transfer and supply transport duties in addition to moving your resources.

They can still perform this function but at a significantly reduced rate. On-map trains and ships are now rated at only 10% of their normal resource carrying capacity. Oil tankers aren’t commonly loaded up with assault formations and sent to the nearest beachhead.

Instead you can build ships and trains and transfer them into your dedicated transport pool where they will focus solely on moving your resources back to your capital. Any ship or train in your transport pool will operate at 100% efficiency.

I’ve done this for reasons of realism but mainly because it provides a foundation for the second part of the Enhanced Resource Mod (not yet released). With a dedicated transport pool I’m able to do all kinds of interesting things such as have the AI (or your human opponent [edit] maybe, not sure about this…) wage war against your convoys. Think England fighting the Battle of the Atlantic or Japan struggling to get resources back to their homelands in the face of an unrelenting American submarine and mine warfare campaign.

The second big change is that RAW and OIL are treated separately. Previously they were lumped together and your available transport capacity treated them as one and the same. Now they are distinct and separate transport tasks.

Oil tankers don’t normally double up as Ore or Coal carriers. Technically there were, at one point, vessels called OBO’s (Oil-bulk-Oil carriers) that did exactly that but it was found that they weren’t economical (it took too long to switch from one mode to the other) and they suffered from the minor inconvenience of suddenly sinking (the heavy grabs used to discharge the ore damaged the pipe work in the tanks which resulted in an eventual catastrophic failure due to a sudden ingress of seawater).

So if your transport capacity has managed to move all your OIL resources, any left over capacity won’t, as before, be able to be swung over to move RAW resources.

Note that this doesn’t involve any additional micromanagement. In fact the new version of the mod streamlines this aspect even more than the previous. All you need to do is build sufficient cargo ships and trains for the task and the mod will take care of the rest. You can still direct it to focus solely on OIL or RAW (or the default 50/50 allocation between the two – ‘Balanced’) but there is no longer any carryover of unused capacity between one resource to the other.

Lastly the other big change of note is that the mod calculates your resource related transport requirements at a higher level of fidelity. Previously your land and sea capacity requirements were lumped into one consolidated figure, as were your transport assets. You ended up with ‘x’ amount of capacity required and you had ‘y’ transport capacity available. As the main focus was on being connected the actual land or sea, oil or raw, components weren’t a factor, only the combined totals.

Matters are significantly different now. Each RAW mine or OIL well is tracked individually and their land and sea legs are calculated as separate components. The land side is further broken down into ‘homeland’ and ‘foreign’.

Cargo ships can only contribute to your sea legs and trains to either homeland or foreign land legs. The days are having an armada of cargo ships ferrying your RAW vast distances across land to your capital are over.

The net result of all this higher level of fidelity is that you will find yourself dealing with bottlenecks in your transport network. Once again this doesn’t involve any micromanagement as it’s all handled by the mod but trying to run your network lean and mean will hurt a lot more than before.

As an example in the previous version you might be running your network with a tenth less than the required number of cargo ships and trains which would translate to a similar (10%) drop in your combined resource movement.

With the current version it is quite possible that, due to a bottleneck situation, your 10% shortage in transport assets might translate into a 40% reduction in resource movement.

You’re going to need the correct proportion of ships and trains, not just build a whole heap on one type because it’s convenient for reasons other than resource movement.

The decision whether to switch your transport priority from Balanced to solely OIL or RAW transport also becomes more meaningful and fraught.

Oh, the LEADER mod has been removed as this currently conflicts with Vic’s new Officers feature. I’ve left the original combined Resource and Leader Mod in the file repository if anybody wishes to use them but they’ll only work with ATG versions up to 2.12 (prior to Officers).

Beans and Bullets (all those trucks and how far your supply extends) is now automatically incorporated in the mod as opposed to being an option before. Who doesn’t want to become a mean *ssed, cigar smoking, Trucking magnate?

Connections

The mod will automatically determine if a particular resource is connected to your capital or not. It is ruthless in its thoroughness and the fact that you are desperate for oil bothers it not in the slightest. You can’t twist its arm or order it to find a connection when there isn’t one. There is no gray in the mod’s world of resources. As far as it’s concerned you are either connected or you aren’t.

Resources without a valid land/sea connection to your capital are marked on the map with a red background. You’ll know it when you see it.

On the plus side it will find, and use, the shortest available route. In this it is more accurate than the base game (eg. F5 supply overlay and right click to see the path supply follows) although the comparison isn’t entirely fair as supply has different criteria for an efficient path than resources.

The route calculations, as well as just about everything else, are dynamic so if anything changes it will be picked up and allowed for prior to the next turn. It will also take into account any new ports or shipyards that you build as these are both considered valid nodes in any transport grid.

It will calculate the land, both homeland and foreign, and sea components for each individual resource site and work out the transport capacity required for each individual leg. It is relentless. It shows no mercy. It doesn’t stop. Ever.

Neglect your transport network and your tanks, planes and ships will all end up sucking air and wondering why they aren’t going anywhere.

Hasta la vista, baby.

Connection Quirks

Every now and then, for reasons related to a particular ATG function, the mod will make a connection between two ports (that have no viable connection) via off-map ocean areas. An example would be a couple of ports, one north and one south, both isolated from each by water. The quirk of the function will allow a connection to be made via an assumed off-map ocean connection. This will occur independent of any ‘map loop’ settings you may have.

I originally tried to write a work around for this but gave up ‘cause it was so hard to replicate (rarely occurs) and, when it does, it’s a nice touch of abstraction. Yes, you do have a connection when, by rights, you shouldn’t have, but it is a L-O-N-G connection that’ll require a whole fleet of cargo ships to handle. Time Overhead

There are an awful lot of calculations happening within the mod. It is going to slow down your game? Nope. You’ll hardly notice it. Watch the messages that pop-up while ATG figures out the next move. All the mod related thinking , as well as a lot of normal ATG stuff, happens during ‘turn events’ (for your particular regime). Blink and you’ll miss it.

Player Help

The mod will provide 400 RAW and 2000 OIL bonus resources at the start to give you some time to get on your feet.

If you are playing a random game with a pregenerated empire then the mod will, on turn 1, immediately make whatever civilian requisitions are necessary in order to satisfy your immediate transport needs which may well, on a larger map, be substantial. You’ll receive a message to that effect. POOL units

As already mentioned above the mod distinguishes between two different types of transport assets (trains and cargo ships) – those on the map and those in your transport pool.

On map assets are normal ships and trains that can be used for all manner of warmongering and strategic movement purposes. You don’t need to worry about them as the mod will find them where ever they are and tally them up each turn.

The disadvantage to all this flexibility is that they will only contribute a small amount, (10%), to your ability to transport resources. Eg. their capacity is very limited. That’s cause they’re busy doing all those other important things that you have ordered them to do.

Assets in your transport pool will, however, focus laser-like on your resources to the sole exclusion of everything else. As a result they get to utilise their full carrying capacity.

Your transport pool is an off-map repository that is kept track off by the mod. There is a special unit on your map (look in your capital) called ‘POOL’. This is how transport assets are shuffled between the map and your pool.

You’ll notice that there is a single rifleman in the POOL unit. That’s Bruce. He takes care of all the paperwork.

Anything placed in a POOL unit will be automatically transferred into your transport pool at the beginning of each turn.

Only eligible units are transferred, eg. trains and cargo ships. Everything else is sold off, by Bruce, on the black market. Beware!

You can have as many POOL units as you want, wherever you want. They don’t need to be attached to an HQ, the only criteria is that they are named as “POOL” (create a new unit and click on its name to change it – case sensitive). If you create your own POOL units then you don’t have to worry about Bruce (no need to add in a rifleman). Bruce has ways and means of his own to ensure you don’t slip anything past him.

Feel free to move the original POOL unit to a more convenient coastal city or up the nearest mountain if you so desire.

Transfers are one way. Once units are in the pool they can’t come back. They’ve taken the red pill. Will it work with other Mods?

Probably not. Graphic mods should be O.K but anything that involves code is going to struggle to find a friendly foothold in the great big ball of string that is the ERM. If anyone wants to try and integrate it with their favourite mod then they have my blessing.

Will it make the Game Harder?

Yes. Deliberately so. It is geared to make the AI into an AI_0.60 which would be roughly halfway between a normal AI and AI+.

How does it compare with the previous Resource Mod? Tougher - due to the Pool mechanics, Oil and Raw being treated separately and the possibility of bottlenecks.

If you haven’t already, you should read my other post that goes into the difficulty and the AI aspects in greater detail.

Bugs and Stability

It’s stable. The core code that handles the resource connections has had several years of use and abuse and can be considered bullet proof.

There are a couple of minor, nuisance bugs that are still there ‘cause I’ve been unable to squash them but they are rare and have no impact on game play.

Welcome to the land of Hope and Glory. You’re in charge. Congratulations. What happened to the last General, you ask? Hopeless. Had to put him down.

Down south is the fair, sunny Homeland (Nordic gods, all of us) and our fine Capital. Directly to the west is Near Island with its single oil well. Nobody likes living there. It stinks.

Up north is The Peninsular (they’re all inbred) and Far Away Island (don’t talk about them, we don’t). Internal rail lines are shown.

Nobody likes foreigners. Not around here. Best not to deal with them. We’d like you to focus on getting all the oil and raw from the Homeland to our capital. How many trains do we need?

Each resource site is at level 1 which gives it an output of 20 t (or the Oil equivalent in bbls).

Both the Oil wells to the north east are 4 hexes away. That’s a distance of 40 Nm as each hex is assumed to be 10 Nautical Miles wide (it’s an international measurement used by the whole world unlike miles and kilometres). So the capacity required for each well is 40 Nm x 20 t = 800 t-Nm (tonnes per nautical mile).

A train has a capacity of 2000 t-Nm (this scales upwards with map size, it’s a very small map) so we are looking at a couple of trains to handle the Homeland transport requirements (eg. 800 + 800 + 2400 = 3600 t-Nm, which is easily carried by two trains with a combined 4000 t-Nm capacity).

Hold on, it’s not that straightforward. Our transport priority is ‘Balanced’ which means a 50/50 split between Oil and Raw. Trains that carry Raw aren’t capable of carrying Oil at the same time. So one for Oil and the other for Raw. Will that work? Raw has a requirement for 1600 t-Nm. No problems but Oil needs 2400 t-Nm. You’ll actually need two trains to handle the Oil.

So three trains will do the job. Good oh. We happen to have some spare engines and enough rolling stock lying around to take care of it. We’ll assign them to the transport pool immediately.

But there is a lot of industry here in the Capital. We’d like to optimise our factory production lines. Near Island have offered to sell us their Oil.

Excellent but will our three trains be enough? That gives us a total capacity of 6000 t-Nm which, because of our Balanced priority, is split down the middle with 3000 t-Nm available for Raw and the same for Oil.

Well the Raw is easy as there is only 1600 t-Nm situated on Homeland soil. Homeland Oil needs 2400 t-Nm and foreign Oil (anything that isn’t on the same land mass as your capital) requires 600 t-Nm. Looks like our 3000 t-Nm capacity can handle it, just.

Then, of course, we’ll need a ship. As a standard cargo ship, on this map size, can tackle anything up to 4000 t-Nm it looks like we are all sorted.

One important thing to note is that Homeland resources always have priority over Foreign ones. Your available rail capacity is allocated firstly to your Homeland needs and anything left over is directed to your foreign requirements.

O.K. Everything going according to plan except for the Treadworth Steelworks in the Capital. Desperately short of Raw feedstock. Can’t make tanks without more Raw. Our only option is to suppress our xenophobic tendencies and import it from The Peninsular and the Far Away Island.

Trouble is we can only, despite our best efforts, muster eight trains and a couple of rusty cargo ships. We Vikings are doing it tough.

With eight trains we’d have 8000 t-Nm capacity available for both Raw and Oil, more than enough to cover all contingencies. But two cargo ships only provide 4000 t-Nm for each. Not an issue with the Oil we are shipping in from Near Island but we’ve got a major problem with the Raw from Far Away Island.

Drum roll dramatic music because we have a BOTTLENECK! On Far Away Island the trains are happily shunting all the Raw from the mines to Far City but half of it is going to sit on the docks because of the lack of shipping.

The amount of Raw which we’ll be able to import from Far Away Island is therefore only 50% of the total. Instead of our 40 t of much needed Raw we’ll only import 20 t. This is despite the fact that we have enough rail capacity to move the full amount.

A bottleneck can’t happen on your Homeland because it is solely rail transport. But it can happen with foreign (non-homeland) resources whenever you have a mismatch of foreign rail (which moves the resource from mine to the nearest foreign port) and shipping capacity.

In the case of a mismatch (in the above instance our foreign rail was running at 100% capacity but our shipping capacity was down to 50%), the lower capacity applies (hence we only received half of our Raw).

There are two ways to get around a bottleneck. Either build more of the required trains and ships (your staff will let you know how many) or change your transport priority.

Let’s say you decide to focus solely on Raw and change your transport priority accordingly. Now your eight trains are overkill for your rail requirements but the two available cargo ships have just enough capacity to cover your convoy route from Far Away Island (the route from Near Island isn’t used because there is no Raw there, only Oil).

So, happily for all the oompha loompah’s at Treadworth Steelworks they will receive their full quota of Raw. However if The Peninsular’s Raw mine was added in there would be another bottleneck due to the lack of shipping capacity.

Got all that? Stand in line for a medal, you’ve done well.

Reserves

There is no longer the option to specify a Reserve Priority. Now, whatever spare capacity is left over from either Raw or Oil will be used to move reserves, but only of the appropriate type. If you have specified a main priority, other than BALANCED, eg. OIL, then you’ll only have spare Oil capacity left over anyway so in effect an OIL priority will give you the same effect on the reserves.

Note that only spare capacity is used (which is what is left over when you have excess for what is required for each of the three ‘legs’, eg. Homeland, Sea and Foreign). Capacity unused due to bottlenecks (Foreign/Sea imbalances) is lost (‘wasted’ is probably a more accurate term as you don’t physically lose any trains or ships but they sit idle, unable to contribute for this turn).

An approximation is used to move reserves. It is assumed that your reserves are gradually making their way through your transport network, over time, from their resource sites, back to the capital, whenever there is a bit of spare capacity available. As there is a large measure of inefficiency involved (nothing is coordinated, whatever is on hand is utilised) your reserves will move at a slower rate than normal resources through your network.

Throw enough excess capacity at them, though, and you’ll eventually have them in your capital but nowhere near as fast as the previous incarnation of the mod.

It’s also quite conceivable that, on the same turn, you are adding to your reserve stockpile due to a lack of transport, or a bottleneck, but simultaneously moving some of that same stockpile back to your capital. This happens because you have surplus transport capacity in some part of your network (either the sea leg or the foreign land) that isn’t needed and instead can be utilised to move some of your stockpile.

Excess shipping capacity will shift foreign stockpiled reserves as well as homeland reserves. In the case of homeland reserves it is assumed that coastal shipping services are transporting reserves where-ever possible. However if there are no foreign reserves to move, eg. perhaps it is an all-land map, any excess shipping capacity will be lost.

All of this is handled automatically by the mod and there are reports to indicate what is happening. The explanation is more complicated than the doing.

Random Events

Your transport pool will be affected by enemy action but only, in it’s current – temporary – incarnation, by random, probability, based occurrences.

Once the next mod module is in place the enemy action will be a lot more detailed, dynamic, intelligently directed and you’ll have means at your disposal to counter it.

Random events are only tested for after the first ten turns have passed.

Base chance of an event is 5% ( 1 in 20 ) with an additional +1% for every 50 turns that have elapsed.

If an event occurs then it is a random roll to determine whether it s a land or sea event. The odds of these are directly proportional to the amount of land and sea on the map. Eg. if the map consists of 90% land then the chances are only 10% that it will be a sea event.

Next, the severity of the event is ascertained. There is a 10% chance of a severe event, 30% chance of a moderate event and 60% chance of a low level event. Depending on the type of event, land or sea, this translates to a loss of trains or ships from the transport pool due to partisans or enemy submarines.

You can expect that you will suffer a steady, low level attrition of your transport assets due to enemy action with the occasional spike. As the game progresses the frequency of random events will slowly ramp up, eg. by turn 250 the chances of a random event will be 1 in 10.

Summary

• Oil and Raw are treated separately for Transport calculations • Land and Sea components are treated separately • Land is broken down to Homeland (same land mass as your capital) and Foreign (everything else) • When allocating rail capacity Homeland has priority • Bottlenecks are caused when there is an imbalance between Foreign rail and Sea capacity. • In the case of a bottleneck the lowest value transport capacity is used for both. • On-map transport assets (trains and cargoships) contribute only 10% of their carrying capacity, those in the transport Pool 100% • Move units into the pool via the POOL unit • You can create your own POOL units, simply name them as such.

Note

The recommendations regarding the number of trains and cargo ships you need contained within the 'Staff Officers Report - Transport', that pops up every turn, are based on your current transport priority setting (eg. BALANCED) and refer to your transport Pool.

If you're used to playing with the previous resource mod then it's easy to build a bunch of trains and ships and forget to transfer them into your pool. If you leave them on the map they'll only be 10% as effective as if they are in your pool.

. The following has been cut and pasted from the previous Resource Mod manual for the sake of completeness and for anybody who is unfamiliar with the basics. You can skip it if you are up to speed.

Beans and Bullets

All those pretty colours when you press F5.

They show the extent of the Supply range from your HQ’s to your units. Currently this is a passive game function that just happens. Beans and Bullets put some backbone into it and requires you to provide trucks to make it so.

The trucks you require don’t have to be assigned to particular Headquarters. In fact they can be part of a combat formation hooning off around the map. They are assumed to do double duty running supplies during the night. As long as you have enough trucks and they are somewhere in your Empire then it’s all good.

Being inside the hold of a cargo ship rolling around the ocean doesn’t count. For the purposes of the mod, trucks stowed in cargo ships are considered persona non-grata. They are, for the duration of their voyage, a non-truck.

The report below demonstrates what happens when you don’t have enough trucks to keep your troops fed and ammo’d up.

Notice that the size of your (in the example) Army has increased from 1380 PP (Power Points) in the previous example to 1830 PP in this. As a result your requirements for trucks have jumped from 7 to 9. As you haven’t got 9 trucks there is a shortfall of 2.

Which drops your Supply Range proportionally (you only have 70% of your required trucks) from 250 AP to 175 AP. Best not to let it go any lower.

You’ll notice in both examples that the trucks running supplies on your behalf burn up a certain amount of fuel (set at 20 bbls [edit: bbls means barrels] of fuel per truck). What’s worth knowing here is that you are only charged fuel for transporting supplies for the required number of trucks, not for every one you own.

So if you cleaned out the East Coast Showrooms and cornered the truck market, say a fleet of fifty of the best, then you still only pay fuel for the six, for example, that are required.

In further good news you are given, at the start of the game, a bunch of trucks for free. Courtesy of your Government. Your Government loves you.

The amount you are given is what’s required to commence the game with the standard supply range sitting at 250 AP, after that it’s up to you as to how much you value your troops being in supply.

Interestingly if you are on the defensive you can get away with a smaller supply range but when launching an offensive it’s a case of the more the better. Unfortunately for world conquerors the maximum range is capped at 250 AP.

Another point of interest is that the Mod calculates your Army size in Power Points at the start of every turn but it excludes your navy from the calculations.

Suffice to say that if you want to build a really big army and keep it supplied then you had better love trucks. As in real life, big armies drag a big tail around behind them.

The information bar along the top of the screen displays your current Supply range in AP (action points which translate to a particular number of hexes depending on the terrain involved. Eg. it goes forever if it is following a railway line and stops dead in a swamp). Ignore the yellow zero, it’s there for decoration purposes only.

All calculations for the Beans and Bullets option are done by the mod at the beginning of your turn. Which means – important point – if you produced trucks this turn then they won’t show up (on the report), or be taken into account, until the following turn. Connected Resources

A resource that isn’t connected doesn’t provide any benefit to you. Only when it can trace a path back to your Capital do you receive the RAW or OIL.

The path must be either a direct rail link to your Capital, or if that isn’t possible, a rail link to a Port (or Shipyard) that itself can trace a valid route back to your Capital. This route could consist of a chain of Ports and rail-lines as long as they eventually make it back to your Capital.

The picture above shows a simple situation. The three resources sites on the main island with the Capital have a direct rail connection. There are a further two resource sites on the big island (circled in yellow) that have rail connections to three separate coastal cities, each of which can trace a sea route back to the Capital.

There are four isolated resource sites on various islands that are circled in red. These are unconnected and won’t benefit you until you land engineers and construct a port and rail infrastructure linking them to your Capital.

A City on the coast is considered a Port as are like-named structures that you build with your engineers such as Ports or Shipyards.

The mod determines the length and breadth of your transport network at the beginning of each turn. Having done so it looks at all your resource sites and figures out if a valid path exists for each. With a thumbs up you are connected and in the money, so to speak. Thumbs down and your Resource site sadly fails to resource this turn.

Unconnected Resource sites are denoted by a red background on the map for easy identification.

Shown above is a more interesting situation. The Capital here is inland but it is connected to a coastal city by a rail link. The coastal city has a viable sea route to a port on the Southern Island which should normally be enough. But remember the resource sites themselves must have a rail connection to either the Capital or a Port that, eventually, reaches the Capital. You can see that all three sites have a rail connection to a city but that city doesn’t have a rail line to the only port on the island, hence unconnected resources with the red highlights (under their names, eg. OIL) indicating this.

Enemy zones of control, blockaded ports and broken rail lines all act as broken links in the chain. If there are multiple possible routes the mod will choose the best one (the shortest).

If you would like to know what route is being used for a particular site then center the map on your capital and press F5. Follow this by right clicking on the resource site in question and the red arrows show the route taken.

Due to a few minor variations in how a supply path is calculated by ATG and how a transport path is worked out by the mod there may be the occasional differences to the path indicated by the red arrows. These are rare and have minimal impact. They are mainly centred around situations where your capital is one hex inland from a coast. The supply path will automatically traverse the one hex overland but the mod will look for a valid seaport – rail – capital connection.

Here is an advanced example. The Capital on this map is way down in the bottom left of the picture. The Raw resource (‘A’) is connected by its rail link to a nearby port. From here it has to be shipped north then railed south to the Capital.

But what about the Raw site (‘B’), top left? It traces a rail link to a shipyard via two linked cities. From this shipyard it traces a sea link east and another, final, rail link south to the Capital.

Take a look at the Raw site middle right (‘C’). It has a rail link to a city in the west, then a sea link heading further west to another coastal city, then a rail link south west to the shipyard and then back to the Capital via another sea and rail link.

Likewise the Oil site (‘D’) top right, traverses five separate rail and sea links to reach the Capital.

All of the above are connected resources. The mod can handle any combination of paths provided they follow a linked route back to your Capital.

While the above is a contrived example that I quickly knocked up in the editor it demonstrates the nebulous nature of your transport network – particularly on ocean maps - and how certain rail lines or ports act as critical links in the chain. Lose control of these ‘hubs’ and you’re in real trouble.

The resource numbers on the main display screen need a little explanation. The game automatically tallies up resources regardless of their connection status. As this is hardcoded the mod subtracts from the total any resources that aren’t connected.

The White values will be accurate at all times and reflect the true resource situation. The Yellow values only really apply to RAW – resources chewed up by your production – and they will also be correct. The Green values indicate the sum total of each resource available this turn regardless of whether they are connected or not. Ignore this. Instead use the ‘Connected Resource Report’ shown below to get a snapshot of your available resources (you’ll have to view this through the Action Card ‘Report’ Menu. Alternatively you can toggle it to display each turn if required.)

Important Things to Know

• Resources must be connected to your Capital. • Resources required transport Capacity to move back to your Capital. • Transport capacity is measured in t-Nm (see below). Trains and Cargo ships are have are both rated at a certain amount of t-Nm that they can do per turn.

• Cargo ships have three times the capacity of a train but burn fuel (50 bbls) per turn in addition to any other fuel they may burn for normal usage. • Resources require 10 t-Nm to move 1 hex for each ton of resource. • A land hex is the same as a sea hex for transport calculation purposes. Eg. ten hexes of land is equivalent (in distance and transport capacity) to ten hexes of sea. • Oil is converted to tons for the purposes of transport at 12.5 bbls per ton (level one OIL site produces 20 t, same as a level one RAW site). • Each turn the mod figures out how much transport capacity is required to move both your RAW and OIL resources. • It also figures out how much transport capacity you have available (trains and cargo ships). • If you don’t have enough available capacity to meet your requirements only a portion of your resource are transported (a proportional percentage). The remainder are sent to your ‘Reserves’ (stockpiled). • Your Reserves can’t be used until, they too, are transported to your Capital. This only happens if you have excess capacity above and beyond your requirements. • The Fat Controller handles all the details. You can tell him (via Action Cards) to focus on a particular resource, eg. OIL. If you do this he will direct all available capacity to moving OIL. Any left over will move OIL reserves. • The Fat Controller uses a default setting of ‘Balanced’. He allocates exactly half your available capacity to RAW and the other half to OIL.

Thank you so much, Lancer . I´ll be testing and playing your mod. Of course I´ll give you some feedback. It´s like a dream to play ATG with your mod, the hardcore production, the new officers and NATO symbols .

Thanks Lancer for this new enhanced resource mod! I didn't see a mention of where to get it (unless I overlooked it). For those not knowing where to find it, it is in the scenario bank of the advancedtactics.org website. If you don't have an account there, see my combined Resource/NATO Counters Mod which includes it. Secondly, I think Lancer's mod is either missing a leader.at2 file or his menu item is incorrectly pointing to it vice the included ERM_Officers.at2 file. Pending word from Lancer, my combined mod doesn't use the menu item but does use the ERM_Officers.at2 file.

I think these 20 bbls is an additional cost that never existed in ATG. If you don´t have these trucks you will also have 250 AP (with no cost in bbls), the same with cargoships. We had a discussion about it in the forum: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3219664 In other words, visible transports are only used to transfers units, automatic resupply to units is done by invisible transports with no cost. Am I wrong?

I think Lancer's mod is either missing a leader.at2 file or his menu item is incorrectly pointing to it vice the included ERM_Officers.at2 file.

Small mistake in packaging up the mod on my part. If you've already downloaded the ERM.atzip then you'll need to go into the /mods directory and delete the 'leader.txt' file. Having it there doesn't intefere with the mod in anyway but it does lead to confusion.

The file repositry has been updated with the correct packaged file, now renamed to 'ERM_Officers.ATZIP' which is identical to the previous one but without the problem.

1-I tend to transfer 1 truck to the pool for Bruce faster moving, however after that when I transfer trains to the pool the truck dissapears. Is it a bug? 2-All resources, trains and ships stocked in the pool should disappear when the enemy destroys the pool. It is supposed pool is located in a physical place not in heaven. Don´t know if it is possible change. 3-Perhaps the pool coud be movile when stocks are very low, but what about moving tons of resources stocked? Wouldn´t it be more realistic to stock it in a fixed location (the capitol)? 4-I´d like to be able to see number of trains inside the pool. 5-It would be great the possibility to sack enemy´s resources capturing his pool (and everything inside) and draining it like another mine/refinery. 6-The option to destroy mines/refineries using engineers (sabotage).

A question: Is it costly to locate Bruce far from the capitol? I mean will you need more trains/ships (and oil) for transport purposes if Bruce is really far from mines and capitol?

1-I tend to transfer 1 truck to the pool for Bruce faster moving, however after that when I transfer trains to the pool the truck dissapears. Is it a bug?

Anything other than trains and cargo ships in the POOL units will be sold by Bruce on the black market. Going, going, gone. This is so because of a small limitation with the ATG editor which prevents me from selectively removing SFT's from within a specific unit.

There is no need to give Bruce a truck. Leave him where he is and create as many POOL units as you like, where ever you like. Just remember to rename them to 'POOL'.

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2-All resources, trains and ships stocked in the pool should disappear when the enemy destroys the pool. It is supposed pool is located in a physical place not in heaven. Don´t know if it is possible change.

If the enemy destroys a POOL unit all that will happen is that any trains or cargo ships you have transferred into them during your last turn will be lost. The POOL units are only there as a mechanism to transfer transport assets from the map to your transport pool, they don't represent your actual transport pool.

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3-Perhaps the pool coud be movile when stocks are very low, but what about moving tons of resources stocked? Wouldn´t it be more realistic to stock it in a fixed location (the capitol)?

As above, the POOL units don't represent your transport pool. Think of them as a gateway between the map and your transport pool. Or perhaps they are a physical park or dock where your trains and cargo ships are reassigned.

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4-I´d like to be able to see number of trains inside the pool.

Go into the Action menu system and look under 'Resources' then 'Reports'. The one you want is called 'Transport Assets'. You can toggle it so it appears every turn if required, also done via the action card menu system.

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5-It would be great the possibility to sack enemy´s resources capturing his pool (and everything inside) and draining it like another mine/refinery.

I deliberately didn't provide this capability as the idea of the mod is to improve the AI's performance. Difficult to do anyway as the AI is given whatever resources it needs each turn for free by the program.

If, and when, stage 2 of the mod is complete you should be able to do this in a multiplayer game.

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6-The option to destroy mines/refineries using engineers (sabotage).

Outside of the scope of the mod. Using the current ERM mod, in multiplayer, you can prevent your opponent transporting his resources to his capital but his mines will keep mining.

1-Connection to the capital: Pool´s trains can only work if mines/refineries are connected to capitol, instead I think resources should be transported to the nearest city connected to the mine/refinerie (if it´s blocked then to the next, etc). Obviously every city has a train station and storehouses, furthermore resources are mainly required near the front. In this way there won´t be necessity to buy loads of trains when your capitol is far from the front and then back again. Only mines/refineries located in isolated islands will require ships to connect them to the nearest city. A more rational distribution makes it more realistic and easy to play.

2-Supply pool: Automathic supply distribution is done by trucks, I´ve noticed these trucks can also be used for manual transfers using all its landcap. To avoid confusions it might be a good idea to create a "supply pool" and put inside the trucks required. Using a supply pool, visible and invisible transportation can be distinguised.

3-Player´s choice: If some day train movement requires a cost in raw there will be interesting new strategic options. Some countries have plenty of oil, others have tons of raw. Let players choose what kind of transportation they prefer: Trains or trucks for the pool and automathic supply distribution (invisible transportation) or even a mix of them.

1-Connection to the capital: Pool´s trains can only work if mines/refineries are connected to capitol, instead I think resources should be transported to the nearest city connected to the mine/refinerie (if it´s blocked then to the next, etc). Obviously every city has a train station and storehouses, furthermore resources are mainly required near the front. In this way there won´t be necessity to buy loads of trains when your capitol is far from the front and then back again. Only mines/refineries located in isolated islands will require ships to connect them to the nearest city. A more rational distribution makes it more realistic and easy to play.

The idea of the mod is to make the game more challenging, not easier. Having to build a lot of trains is deliberate as you have to balance your need for resources with your need to produce military units.

Requiring resources to come back to your capital was done for ease of programming but also to provide another small layer of strategic planning to the game. Resources that are close to your capital are much more valuable than those over the hills and far away. Also there wouldn't be any point in the second stage of the mod if there weren't extended trade routes that need protecting.

Historically the logistical tail of an army is larger than the army itself, even more so today. In WW2 you could also argue that in most of the major combatant countries, their industrial heartlands were all located within a reasonable distance from their capitals, America being the exception.

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2-Supply pool: Automathic supply distribution is done by trucks, I´ve noticed these trucks can also be used for manual transfers using all its landcap. To avoid confusions it might be a good idea to create a "supply pool" and put inside the trucks required. Using a supply pool, visible and invisible transportation can be distinguised.

I've thought about doing this and could easily do it via the same POOL units that are already there. Whether it is to much micromanagement or would get people upset at having to build a lot of extra trucks is an open question.

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3-Player´s choice: If some day train movement requires a cost in raw there will be interesting new strategic options. Some countries have plenty of oil, others have tons of raw. Let players choose what kind of transportation they prefer: Trains or trucks for the pool and automathic supply distribution (invisible transportation) or even a mix of them.

I'd suggest being careful not to over complicate the Resource Mod. Be certain the 'fun' factor of ATG is not being diluted. For one I'm not in favor of trains costing raw in order to move. It already cost raw to build them and raw to construct new rail lines. Don't understand the rationale for expending raw to move them. Currently trains are considered to use coal for movement and in ATG coal is considered in unlimited supply. I would not change this.

1-About partisans activity I´d like to know if their sabotages affect a number of trains or a proportion (%). I consider a proportion is more realistic since in large maps (ie 100 trains in the pool) losing one or two trains is a simple annoyance.

2-Will return some day the leader´s mod? It´s obvious that there´s a lot of brilliant feedback left out in the "Officers in ATG, your thoughts please" thread, furthermore after installing the latest patch (2.14) I´m not able to play with the resource mod .

Sabotage is a simple number of trains affected. It isn't scaled to map size. The random events are just a place holder until I get part 2 of the mod up and running so they aren't that sophisticated. As they are something the player has no control over I've deliberatly kept their effects low key.

The Leaders mod might get tied into the Officers one day but don't hold your breath. Huge job. Probably more likely I'll take what Vic has done and add to it. One day...

I've haven't updated the ERM to 2.14 yet as I've been away but I should be able to find time this week.

[edit] I've just noticed that 2.14 is a rough beta. As there is a fair bit of effort involved in upgrading I'll hang off until 2.14 is finalised. [/edit]

The mod is fully compatible with the high production cost option as that's how I normally play the game and it was designed around that.

The numbers at the top of the screen for oil and raw are, as mentioned in the explanation, somewhat misleading. That's because the ATG engine hard codes the calculations and any modding I do ontop is unable to tap into these calculations. Rest assured that the combined ATG / mod calculations are accurate.

The difference in the numbers at the top of the screen and your in-game reality is that while the screen might show you have 100 oil coming in this turn, it is unable to tell that 60 of that oil won't be arriving because the wells aren't connected to your capital.

There's a report you can access in the mod (Resource summary?) that gives a full breakdown of your resource in's and out's if needed on a turn by turn basis. You can toggle that report to show up every turn if required.

If the numbers are going into the red then this is an indication that you are overproducing for your current level of resources. As unmet production (eg. not enough raw to build those 6 tanks from last time) keeps accumulating if you don't stop your production lines then the numbers will keep going further into the red.

This is how the ATG engine works. It becomes more apparent with the mod because you generally have less resources early in the game than normally due to the need to hook them up to your capital.

Synthetic oil and recycled ore are hard coded by the engine, I can't access the numbers for the mod reports. However they show up in the totals at the top of the screen.

A level 1 mine can only produce 6t (20/3t in reality) raw in high production cost mode. If you use all transport on oil, transport lack will cause -20t raw (should divide by 3). So, each turn i get -14t raw, even if i only produce pp and supply.

And when i check the report, I found even if there is no transport lack on raw, the total income produced in wells, transported from reserves and recycled in cities doesn't match the white number changes. It is neither the same nor 3 times.

My mistake. I thought you were referring to the 'Costly Research' option and had forgotten about the new 'High production cost' option in the extra options screen.

You're right. The mod currently doesn't work with the High Production Cost option as all the calculations are based on the standard 20t per level 1 resource site. I hadn't realised that Vic had dropped the output of resources for this option.

You are not doing anything wrong. There is no menu option included in the mod for loading it. You have to manually select it. You do that by starting a new Random Game. On that screen in the Options section is a button you can click on that allows you to change the at2 file that the random game will be based on. By default generic.at2 is selected. Change that to ERM...at2 something and you'll have your Enhanced Resource Mod game.

Alternatively, if you like to use NATO counters in your random game, I've packaged Lancer's mod with my NATO counters mod and included buttons or a menu to select the mod. Also, there is a button/menu item to select Lancer's mod without NATO counters.

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ORIGINAL: Stardog

Hello

Guys I'm trying to play this MOD.I did the download and did the unzip with ATG/zip install but the MOD never shows up?